The School of Being
Basic information
Project Title
Full project title
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Project Description
A university to learn Earth again, to understand how did we live, how can we live, and how should we live?
A university which has a bridge to connect faculties, to be a bridge between ideas&solutions, innovation&acting, culture&design.
A university which evolves by time, grow by nature, and change by students.
A university to live in, feed from to experiment for new behaviours.
An old slaughterhouse turning into a university to learn|addapt and act for sustainability.
Project Region
EU Programme or fund
Description of the project
Summary
THE_SCHOOL_OF_BEING is a university proposal for having a community-like campus in the former slaughterhouse -now abandoned- in Viale Molise, Milan, Italy. The project started by asking questions on how can we share the future, than after visiting the site which is 150.000 square meters of different factory buildings including the six Liberty style buildings from 1900's in it's complex; the project became very clear. The site is inhabited by the wild nature in human abondance, the aim of having nature in any space in our time made me realize I should not touch the site. This school will represent Anthropocene and try to solve it's problems, what it better than space to get educated about sustainability in a space where nature sustained itself fighting with concrete structures?
THE_SCHOOL_OF_BEING is a university which aims to built a bridge between science&arts, sustainability&culture, human&nature in order to develop towards educating ourselves about our land to sustain the life on it. The bridge becomes a literal bridge, in the site there is almost a 200 m long bridge which connects one end to the other. This bridge will be designed into reading, studying, passing and resting space which will invite all the faculties to gather. The location of the faculties are designed in order to bring fields which weren't usually place near each other. Forcing Science and Arts&Design labs to see, inspire, collaborate each other.
THE_SCHOOL_OF_BEING is an adaptive reuse project in order to create a university campus which can sustain itself. It has two sections; Frontline and Laboratory. "Frontline" are the six Liberty buildings which dates back to 1900, one of them is Macao, a culture space which is the only active space in the site. The buildings will become; a restaurant, gallery, nightclub, management, and a shop for students to be able to "test" their ideas on public, where they came up in the "labarotories" (faculties).
Key objectives for sustainability
THE_SCHOOL_OF_BEING aims to host and spark the innovative ideas towards sustainability. To start a genaration where they can teach how to inhabit sustainable behaviours through our designs. We live in Anthropocene, in between a digital revolution and a climate crisis. We live in a fast world where we are reminding ourselves to slow down. We are searching online to how to be offline. We live in concrete but wish to be in nature. There are blacks and whites in the context we are in. The school aims to be in the grey zone which tries to balance these two realities; human and nature.
THE_SCHOOL_OF_BEING; named after being me, being us, and earth being. Being mindfull about how we live, where we live, and how do we want to live will be the main questions of the school. The school will aim to find the balance between black and white topics of Anthropocene to start a discussion on what is the new culture, what is the new modern which can be accesible for all. Using our tools we advanced with our intelligence, and remembering our organic nature by being nature aswell; the school will be an education ground to evolve by nature.
THE_SCHOOL_OF_BEING; by locating itself in an well-kept but abandoned factory, it will be a living example of how can we survive without having too much stuff. The school will aim to provide only the essential tools to get education and to live. The school will use either secondhand objects, or organic materials to have around. The nice thing about it, it will be so less, that is almost undesigned to be designed sustainably. The school trusts time, by time the needs will change, the subjects will acummilate, why assume what will be useful later, while it can leave to later to provide itself. Don't we really need just a table, chair, a teacher and some students. Maybe a bookholders, beds, toilets and few cooking tools. Do we really need more? If yes, how can we provide without harming our nature and our being?
Key objectives for aesthetics and quality
THE_SCHOOL_OF_BEING; by locating itself in an well-kept but abandoned factory, it will be a living example of how can we survive without having too much stuff. The school will aim to provide only the essential tools to get education and to live. The school will use either secondhand objects, or organic materials to have around. The nice thing about it, it will be so less, that is almost undesigned to be designed sustainably. The school trusts time, by time the needs will change, the subjects will cummilate, why assume what will be useful later, while it can leave to later to provide itself. Don't we really need just a table, chair, a teacher and some students. Maybe a bookholders, beds, toilets and few cooking tools. Do we really need more? If yes, how can we provide without harming our nature and our being?
THE_SCHOOL_OF_BEING; is searching for the aesthetics of sustainability. Anthropocene is a realisation of nature should be accesible for all, and digital world making our other needs very easy and small as a screen. So what will be the outcome? Isnt't the world getting smaller with datas flying over clouds. Nomadism, lightness, minimal existence, adaptive reuse, and reduce are some strategies of sustainable living. Even though these aren't new concepts, we seem to realize the importance because of the urgency of the crises. On the other hand, the fast world, brought the need of slowing down. Mindfulness, sipiritual fullfilling, these are ways to achieve the adaptation of lightness in our material world. The school will try to experiment all these concepts in order to understand what are the aesthetic outcomes of them, to follow nature for searching forms.
THE_SCHOOL_OF_BEING; has only few furnitures, and very small fixings to an empty industrial space. This school can open in anywhere with the same attitude, maybe that is another aspect of our new aesthetic. Can be possible anywhere, with it's own characteristics. Almost, being universal by being local.
Key objectives for inclusion
THE_SCHOOL_OF_BEING; is a school trying to gather fields and create spaces for them to work and think together. In the urban context, the closest space to feel the inclusion are public spaces. The school will have three sections; Frontline, Laboratory and Experiences.These divisions aim to bring a new meaning for public spaces. While reaching out for new ideas is so easy with almost one click, it is hard to act on those ideas visible for all and test them if they really work.
THE_SCHOOL_OF_BEING Frontline has a structure called Auditorium, the auditorium is located in the corner of the site. This auditorium acts as a welcoming transparent discussion space for transparent discussions. It is also the enterance of the school. The Auditorium will be designed with the nature, having flowers and how they attract bees by their nature as a inspiration. The Auditorium by its historic function to discuss will represent the main goal of the school, to gather for a better future, while being the landmark of the school.
THE_SCHOOL_OF_BEING Laboratories(faculties) will come up with ideas, and the Frontlines(service areas; a restaurant, MACAO -already existing club-, a gallery, a shop, and a management area) will have the chance to test them with visitors outside of the school. This way an immediate feedback will be within the school to develop faster the working solutions.
THE_SCHOOL_OF_BEING Experiences are the smaller buildings in between the faculties, these are meant to be temporary pavilions designed by both local and foreigner students, maybe even brands and other visitors. There will be open calls, concepts to invite anyone who wants to be a part of the school to built pavilions to encourage themes as; mindfulness, being offline, growing green, sharing memories, and learning by seeing. These pavilions aim to make the school an inclusive ground for all interested to share and develop our future.
Innovative character
THE_SCHOOL_OF_BEING; is a school which tries to define our complicated age with it's complicated issues to solve. With innvations, experiments, discussions,open calls and gathering it aims to achieve a big-community living in an education-ground. Because we live in technologies, it is very easy to forget that we are nature aswell. We are not so different than a flower or a cloud. We also have our growing path, a birth and a dead. This school aims to be a reminder of we are nature by the 'undesigned' space, kept history by reused architecture and the wild nature inhabited the space. On the other hand, this school will act like a technology to develop at it's most efficient and accesible way to achieve the most pragmatic solutions by the tools it has provided. The tools will be the essentials for "the making", but more importantly the tools will be the questions to think. To think where we live, how we live, with what we live, and how can we change how we live.
THE_SCHOOL_OF_BEING; is an innovative school to search for innovations of the being. The personal, social, ecological being. Being able to apply the concept in any available site will be the goal of shared futures.
